Word History: War can be traced back to the Indo-European root *wers-, "to confuse, mix up." In the Germanic family of the Indo-European languages, this root gave rise to several words having to do with confusion or mixture of various kinds. One was the noun *werza-, "confusion," which in a later form *werra- was borrowed into Old French, probably from Frankish, a largely unrecorded Germanic language that contributed about 200 words to the vocabulary of Old French. From the Germanic stem came both the form werre in Old North French, the form borrowed into English in the 1100s, and guerre (also the source of guerrilla) in the rest of the Old French-speaking area. Both forms meant "war." Meanwhile another form derived from the same Indo-European root had developed into a word denoting a more benign kind of mixture, Old High German wurst, meaning "sausage." Modern German Wurst was borrowed into English in the 1800s.

war

(wɔː)

n

1. (Military) open armed conflict between two or more parties, nations, or states.

2. (Military) a particular armed conflict: the 1973 war in the Middle East.

3. (Military) the techniques of armed conflict as a study, science, or profession

4. any conflict or contest: a war of wits; the war against crime.

5. (Military) (modifier) of, relating to, resulting from, or characteristic of war: a war hero; war damage; a war story.

6. (Military) to have had a good war to have made the most of the opportunities presented to one during wartime

7. in the wars informal (esp of a child) hurt or knocked about, esp as a result of quarrelling and fighting

vb, wars, warringorwarred

(Military) (intr) to conduct a war

[C12: from Old Northern French werre (variant of Old French guerre), of Germanic origin; related to Old High German werra]

war1

(wɔr)

n., v. warred, war•ring,adj. n.

1. armed conflict between nations or factions within a nation; warfare.

2. a state or period of active military operations.

3. (often cap.) a particular armed conflict consisting of a series of battles or campaigns: the War of 1812.

4. armed fighting as a science or profession.

5. active hostility or contention; conflict: a war of words.

6. aggressive competition in business: a fare war among airlines.

7. a struggle to achieve a particular goal: a war against poverty.

8. Archaic. a battle.

v.i.

9. to make or carry on war.

10. to carry on active hostility or feel strong opposition.

adj.

11. of, belonging to, or resulting from war.

[before 1150; Middle English; late Old English werre < Old North French < Germanic; compare Old High German werra strife; akin to war2]

1. an opposition to war or violence of any kind.2. the principle or policy of establishing and maintaining universal peace.3. nonresistance to aggression. Cf. bellicism. — pacifist, n. — pacifistic, adj.

destruction of or damage to equipment, installations, etc, in an industrial context, as in a labor dispute, or in a military context, as in the action of partisan or resistance movements. — saboteur, n.

battle, engagement, fight, conflict - a hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war; "Grant won a decisive victory in the battle of Chickamauga"; "he lost his romantic ideas about war when he got into a real engagement"

information warfare, IW - the use of information or information technology during a time of crisis or conflict to achieve or promote specific objectives over a specific adversary or adversaries; "not everyone agrees that information warfare is limited to the realm of traditional warfare"

state of war, war - a legal state created by a declaration of war and ended by official declaration during which the international rules of war apply; "war was declared in November but actual fighting did not begin until the following spring"

war - a legal state created by a declaration of war and ended by official declaration during which the international rules of war apply; "war was declared in November but actual fighting did not begin until the following spring"

conflict, struggle, battle - an open clash between two opposing groups (or individuals); "the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph"--Thomas Paine; "police tried to control the battle between the pro- and anti-abortion mobs"

drug war - conflict between law enforcement and those who deal in illegal drugs

trench warfare - a struggle (usually prolonged) between competing entities in which neither side is able to win; "the hope that his superior campaigning skills would make a difference evaporated in the realization that electioneering had become a form of trench warfare"

4.

war - a concerted campaign to end something that is injurious; "the war on poverty"; "the war against crime"

crusade, campaign, cause, drive, effort, movement - a series of actions advancing a principle or tending toward a particular end; "he supported populist campaigns"; "they worked in the cause of world peace"; "the team was ready for a drive toward the pennant"; "the movement to end slavery"; "contributed to the war effort"

Verb

1.

war - make or wage war

fight, struggle, contend - be engaged in a fight; carry on a fight; "the tribesmen fought each other"; "Siblings are always fighting"; "Militant groups are contending for control of the country"

Quotations"War is nothing but the continuation of politics by other means" [Karl von Clausewitz On War]"Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed" [Mao Zedong On Protracted War]"There was never a good war, or a bad peace" [Benjamin Franklin]"War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading" [Thomas Hardy The Dynasts]"He that makes a good war makes a good peace" [George Herbert Outlandish Proverbs]"O I know they make war because they want peace; they hate so that they may live; and they destroy the present to make the world safe for the future. When have they not done and said they did it for that?" [Elizabeth Smart Necessary Secrets]"For what can war but endless war still breed?" [John Milton Sonnet, On the Lord General Fairfax]"Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry,""The subject of it is War, and the Pity of War.""The Poetry is in the Pity" [Wilfred Owen Poems, Preface]"As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular" [Oscar Wilde The Critic as Artist]"In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers" [Neville Chamberlain]"War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men" [Georges Clemenceau]"War is like love, it always finds a way" [Bertolt Brecht Mother Courage and Her Children]"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man" [Thomas Hobbes Leviathan]"History is littered with the wars which everybody knew would never happen" [Enoch Powell speech to the Conservative Party Conference]"Let slip the dogs of war" [William Shakespeare Julius Caesar]"War is the trade of kings" [John Dryden King Arthur]"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it" [George Orwell Shooting an Elephant]"Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come" [Carl Sandburg `The People, Yes']"Since war begins in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed" Constitution of UNESCO"The next war will be fought with atom bombs and the one after that with spears" [Harold Urey]"War will cease when men refuse to fight" pacifist slogan"After each war there is a little less democracy to save" [Brooks Atkinson Once Around the Sun]"What if someone gave a war and Nobody came?""Life would ring the bells of Ecstasy and Forever be Itself again" [Allen Ginsberg The Fall of America]"In the fall the war was always there but we did not go to it any more" [Ernest Hemingway Men Without Women]

Max Hastings has written military histories that cross over well into general history holdings, and Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War is no exception to his formula for success as it documents the outbreak of World War I and traces the influences that led to it.

The argument that Washington cannot afford to go to war is an interesting one, because the opposite view is more often heard--that Washington goes to war because the military spending gives a huge boost to the economy, as happened, most dramatically, in the Civil War and World War II.

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